As you all well know, many of our Waterkeepers throughout the world are impacted by a variety of issues every single day. It is not as common, however, for a half-dozen of them to be impacted by the same issue all at once.

The recent BP oil disaster has caused all of our Gulf Waterkeepers to ban together in a way that makes me so incredibly proud to be a part of this movement.

After spending two hours analyzing underwater video of the BP oil spill, Steve Wereley, a Purdue University professor, has calculated the leak to be between 56,000 to 84,000 barrels of oil per day (versus BP's proclaimed estimate of 5,000 barrels a day). ** 70,000 barrels is equal to roughly 2.8 million gallons. **